[dlazov]

Infantry Company with Tiger and Panthers

Battle 5 August 1943.

Meeting engagement

All core units are fixed. Support points bought 10cm batterie, 8cm batterie, and 2 Fw 189 Uhu. Plan, general push center (Tigers) and south (Panthers). Turn 4, first contact. Obgfrtr Voss in Panther I4 scores the first kill (his 25th). Here we go. Turn 5, the Soviets are trying to out flank me in the south, I guessed correctly and that is where I sent my Panthers. Voss killed another T-34 and Hpt. Osterloh scored his 21st (in Panther I1).

The Russians decided to strike north as well. Lucky I have my Tigers in the general area. Obrgfrtr Oertzen in G4 Tiger scored his 6th and 7th kills. Turn 7, Obrgfrtr Naumann (the newbie), scored his first kill. Sporadic fighting begins. Tiger G1 (Flwbl Langer scores his 19th kill. Turn 9, Fldwbl Bolhuis in Tiger G2 scored his 8th kill.

MG42 (x2) C2, Obrgfrtr Christmann, just gunned down and entire Russian SG43 MMG unit for his 7th kill! Fldwbl Wiegmann in Tiger G3 just lost his tank to a T34 100 meters away, luckily he and his crew bailed out (12 kills for him). Turn 10, the battle is starting to get a little disjointed. The Fw 189 Uhu's came on this turn. The first made it through the flak, but did no noticeable damage. The second one came on and got hit by 37 mm AA and took 8 damage points and went down in flames. Damn, Tiger G4 with 7 kills just got killed, no survivors! Inf-Grp D0 with Obrgfrtr Eberbach, may have saved the day, several of his infantry buddies try to suppress 3x T-34's, with mixed results. I screwed up and drove the Tiger leader G0 (Wiedemann with 30 kills) into the forest and got immobilized by a T-34 next to one of the three T-34's that were hidden. The infantry (2 squads, got suppressed) and one T-34 was immobilized by hand grenades. The Tiger shot and immobilized the 2nd T-34 and Eberbach close assaulted the other T-34 and killed it, and immobilized the 3rd T-34. Then the MG42 team fired at the immobilized T-34 to help suppress it (the one next to my immobilized Tiger) and got a lucky ricochet hit and killed the knocked out T-34's crew with one fell swoop. Well since that went well and I want to save my Tiger I sent in C0 (HQ of the Infantry Company) Hptmann Bertram to try a rescue attempt. He moved one hex into the thick woods and close assaulted the immobilized T-34 and killed it with no survivors! Now only a routed T-34 is left out of three.

Wunderbar Infantry Tank killers! They all shall receive an Iron Cross! Still a long way to go only on turn 11 of 40! Okay, turn 13, down to 2 Tigers. Lost the last Fw 189 Uha to 37mm AA again.

Damn it's turn 19 and on turn 17 I just lost MG 42 (x2) unit, they had 8 kills! So sad. Turn 20, hit the Russian nest egg, 3 x 37mm AA, and 2 x 120 mm mortars. My Panther Platoon has run into them.

Well that battle is over. DV again, but at a cost. Lost 1 Tiger and 1 MMG unit, irreplaceable, but such is life.

Great points for battle 6! I have received from HQ 1600 points. Tough decision. If I increase my core force I increase the enemies strength and my manageable assets.

However if I add say another rifle company and say a assault gun company or just a Tank company, there is some options...

Okay I folded and bought an Inf Kp (sw) with Panzerschrecks and one StuG Btr /10 to go with it and I upgraded my 2 x 20mm fixed AA units to Sdkf 251/17's. Now my force value is 3301, a bit higher then I wanted but. BTW, Panther I4 (Voss) is now my first Star (*) with 27 kills.

Here we go for battle 6 meeting engagement near Voroshilograv during the hot August of 1943.

Status:

Tigers
G0 - Kills 30
G1 - Kills 26
G2 - Kills 16
G3 - Kills 12
G4 - Kills 00
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Totals = 84

Panthers
I0 - Kills 19
I1 - Kills 24
I2 - Kills 09
I3 - Kills 12
I4 - Kills 27
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Totals = 91

Grand Total to date: 175 kills for the tanks alone.

Things are already heating up in Battle 6.